Theme and Variations
by PKNight
Summary: Two songfics about The Couple That Will Never Be...Lorelai and Christopher. I stole the title from an instrumental piece by my cousin.
1. Johnny Was a Pyro

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Title: Johnny Was a Pyro

Author: PKNight

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Rating: PG, I think there are a few swear words in here somewhere…but that's it.

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Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls. I definitely do not own the song, "Johnny Was a Pyro" That belongs to the talented and wonderful performer Patty Larkin. If you ever, ever have the chance to see her in concert, go, and buy all her CDs. They're incredible. If I could think of a reason to have a songfic for "Me and That Train"…gods, that would be great.

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Author's Note: This is two separate fics in one document, since they're very alike. Two songfics dedicated to The Couple With The Most Angst, aka Lorelai and Christopher. Oh, and if anyone knows what Lorelai's birthday is, that would be really nice, 'cause it said that by her sixteenth birthday she still hadn't told anyone, which means that it has to be after about January. And since it takes time for a pregnancy to register, I'm just winging it…. So, if there are any inaccuracies with the time, please, e-mail me politely and let me know.

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February 17, 1984

Tossing and turning, she tried to find a comfortable position on the bed that suddenly had none. She couldn't understand this. She'd slept in this bed just last night, and it had been perfectly comfortable. Someone had to have come in and sabotaged the mattress while she was at school. Her mother was a prime suspect, she thought. Emily wanted Lorelai to be miserable, she was sure of it. None of that "mothers only want what's best for their daughters" stuff; Lorelai knew that Emily would never be happy with her the way she was.

The way she was. She snorted in response to that thought. The way she was. How was she? Rebellious, unconventional, a bad girl. Not what her parents expected to get. Her parents expected a girl who would wear white gowns for their cotillions, behave properly, go to Vassar and marry a nice college man. After a suitable courtship, of course. Then, of course, would come the children. One, maybe two if she had the time between her charity functions and fund raisers.

Lorelai squeezed her eyes together. That certainly wasn't her. Her stomach began to churn, not from the nausea she'd been experiencing and desperately trying to hide, but from nerves. Because she wasn't going to be able to hide it, soon enough. She'd decided to tell her parents tomorrow. Right. She'd resolved to tell her parents "tomorrow" for the last two weeks. Ever since she'd found out for sure from those oh-so-convenient little test sticks. Damn pink. If she was having a girl, she would strike all pink from her life, after that damn stick.

She didn't know how she'd managed to convince Christopher to keep it a secret. She knew him well enough to know that he liked things out in the open. He'd approached her father about dating her, for goodness sakes! But he'd kept his mouth shut about the pregnancy. She was grateful. He'd even kept silent after she turned down his proposal. 

Why had she turned down his proposal? she asked herself. She still didn't know quite why she'd said, _No_ to that all-important question. But she had. Why? Christopher had a promising future, she knew that. He was going to go to Yale, become a lawyer like his father and become a partner in the business. Yet she knew he didn't want that. He didn't want his father's life. And if he didn't want it, then she didn't want it for him. What would their lives be like if she changed her mind?

She fell asleep with that thought chasing her around in her head. Her dreams lately had been turbulent and confusing, and tonight was no exception, except it had music playing in the background, a song she didn't know, and was sure she'd never heard.

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Johnny was a pyro and he acted like a baby   
Wanted all this attention I couldn't give.

Christopher was sitting at his father's desk in the study, holding a lighter to some important-looking papers. "There goes my application to Yale. Oh well. Dad can get me in no matter what." He turned to where Lorelai was suddenly standing in the doorway. She looked uncertain, dressed in jeans and a Go-Gos T-shirt. Christopher opened a drawer at his father's desk and pulled out a bottle of Scotch.

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Drink a bottle of hard stuff say "I love you, now save me"   
Just a big guy with a fun sense of sin.

He grinned at her. "What?" Lorelai asked.

"I love you," he said. "Now save me. Marry me."

"That'll save you?" she demanded, considering it. In response, he knelt and held out a velvet box with the Hope diamond set in a ring. Without waiting for her answer, he slipped the ring on her hand, not noticing the weight of it.

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Sayin' ooh me! What am I doin' with this ring on my hand?

Lorelai shook her head; the sudden vision of her and Christopher in a high-class neighborhood too clear to ignore. She, the pampered wife, always looking beautiful for her husband and his colleagues when they came for drinks and dinner, screaming at the servants in private, just like her mother. Never revealing that there were negative emotions to be found in their household, at least not to those not in it. Fires would have to be lit for warmth when she was displeased. Just like her mother. 

Christopher would wear a suit and tie every day, go off to work that left him dead-eyed at night, unhappy with the way his life was. Unhappy because of the parental expectations they'd given in to at such an early age.

And their kid. It would grow up spoiled, pampered, and knowing that it was the reason its parents were stuck as they were. Maybe it wouldn't care. Maybe they could be happy.

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Ooh me! If this is the good life, who's choosing it?   
Ooh me! Mama's best woman and Daddy's best man.   
Ooh me! I'm highly in danger of losin' it.

Lorelai began screaming at the scene, silent screams that failed to wake her up. The nightmare was too horrible. She was dead inside, being the perfect haute-couture wife. Serving cocktails with a smile on her face, chairing DAR meetings. Just like her mother, the woman Lorelai wanted to avoid becoming at all costs. This is what her life would be. If she married Christopher.

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Johnny was a pyro and he acted like a baby   
Got a phone call from the wild almost every night,   
Well he loved me but he really loved looking past me to the ladies  
He was much too good-looking for his height.

She and Christopher loved each other, didn't they? She knew they did. But was that enough? Would that head off the dreadful life she was watching? Sure, Christopher loved her now. What about a year from now, after she'd given birth to a baby? What about years from now, when that baby would be a kid going off to school? 

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We were a couple of kids crawlin' out of the crib   
Talking about the positives and the negatives of wine  
Livin' our lives just like Hemingway did, but he was lucky   
He was a genius…most of the time.

They were just kids. Kids having kids, Lorelai thought in sleep. I'm a kid, but I'm going to have a kid. I have to raise a kid. I need a job, I need…what did she need? Did she need a husband? Did her kid need a father?

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Ooh me! What am I doin' with this ring on my hand? 

She looked again down at the diamond on her left hand. Her arm stretched under its weight, until her hand hit the floor. The ring was too damn heavy. Too damn many things depending on that ring. She couldn't accept it. She knew that.

She looked again at her life with Christopher, playing on a screen behind her. And shuddered.

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Ooh me! If this is the good life, who's choosing it?   
Ooh me! Mama's best woman and Daddy's best man. 

But in that life, she had her mother's approval. For doing what she was supposed to do, for doing the proper thing, being the proper person. She had her father's affection, his doting on his grandchild, whatever it would be.

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I'm highly in danger of losin' it.

She would be in danger. Of losing all that. Losing her mother's approval, her father's affection. Because it wouldn't be real. None of it would be real. They'd pretend it was real, pretend that nothing was wrong, that life was perfect.

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He was side-swiped by the clue bus when it came to talk to the two of us   
And the whole thing ended ugly I guess.

Christopher's face in the dream as she handed back the ring was the same as when she'd turned down his proposal. Confused, hurt, and a little bit angry. Then she let go of the ring completely, and he, unprepared, collapsed under its weight.

The scene changed abruptly, in the way dreams do. Now she was with her parents, sitting at their fancy dining room table. Rather than place settings, they each had decks of cards in front of them. She drew the first card, keeping her face blank. There was a baby on the card, with large letters reading "Pregnancy" on it. She put it down on the table, face up. Her parents' expressions didn't change. The next card she drew had Christopher on his knees, offering her the diamond. Just a picture of the earlier scene in the dream. Her parents looked a little less blank-faced, a little happier at that. Then the next card she drew had a huge red X on it, and she laid that on top of the proposal card, obscuring the face. Her parents began scowling. Then they took their card piles and threw them over their shoulders.

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You can put the cards out on the table but if nobody wants to play,   
Well, you haven't got a game, you've got a mess.   
And I was looking at the judge leanin' on my lawyer like a crutch,   
And the judge said, "What happened and why?"   
I said, "Johnny was a pyro and he acted like a baby;   
Now there's nothing like the sound of goodbye."

Lorelai shivered, beginning to wake from the last strange scenes of her dream. Christopher's father was the judge, the Gilmore family lawyer acting as her council. She tried to defend herself, her baby and her decision not to marry Christopher, but the courtroom disappeared and she was back, staring at the screen.

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Ooh me! What am I doin' with this ring on my hand?   
Ooh me! If this is the good life, who's choosing it?   
Ooh me! Mama's best woman and Daddy's best man.   
I'm highly in danger of losin' it.

Lorelai sat up straight in bed, panting, before saying, "Christopher was a pyro, and he acted like a baby, wanted all this attention I couldn't give." She fell back on the bed, trying to regain her breath. Then she looked down at her for-now flat stomach. "I guess it's true about pregnancy giving you weird dreams," she said, then turned back over and tried to get back to sleep.

Morning was there before she knew it. And she knew that she would actually keep her promise to herself that day.

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End.

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Boy, I sure am writing a lotta songfics. Well, semi-songfics, since the actual description of one is the characters speak the lyrics. But that's too hard, so this is the version I do, which is a lot easier. Okay. This song is "Johnny Was a Pyro" by Patty Larkin (who once said in concert, "Never piss off a songwriter."), who is an incredible guitarist and songwriter, reminiscent of Bonnie Raitt. I listen to this song a lot, at least weekly, and it never occurred to me before to write it from Lorelai's point of view. It struck me as a dream sequence, since the lyrics are kinda trippy, in a good way. Click on for the next songfic.


	2. Just Like the Blues

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Title: Just Like The Blues

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Author: PKNight

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Rating: This one is G, but since it's one document, PG overall…

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Disclaimers: I don't own anything. Not Gilmore Girls—that belongs to Amy Sherman-Palladino. Not "Just Like the Blues"—that belongs to Roger Brown and is performed by Maura O'Connell, probably others, too, but she's where I learned it from.

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Spoilers: Season 2 finale, "I Can't Get Started." Takes place while Rory is still in Washington (as you'll see), so before "Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer."

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Author's Note: See first chapter…

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Wakes you up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.

Lorelai woke suddenly, the loneliness swamping her. It was worst at night. She was all alone in Stars Hollow. Luke was mad at her, Sookie and Jackson were on their honeymoon, Rory was in Washington. And since the dream was already fading, she didn't really want to bother her by calling her for dream advice. God, she missed Rory. And Luke. She hated when they fought, but it had never lasted this long before. It had been months. He was really never going to forgive her. That led to thoughts of the crash, which still froze her blood. Naturally, thoughts of the crash led to thoughts of…him.

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Now you're thinking about somebody you're trying to forget;   
Maybe it's a full moon laid across your mind,   
Now you're lying there all alone and you feel like crying.

Oh, God, Lorelai thought, and turned onto her side, curling up. It hurt to think about Christopher. After all this time, it would have worked. It would have been wonderful and happy and good. She could even have tolerated the Volvo. But no. The universe was conspiring against them all. It wasn't fair.

You had a lot of chances to make things right,   
Ah, but you let them all fall through. 

But whose fault was it? Christopher's, for never getting his life together with hers? It wasn't that his life didn't come together. It was that it didn't come together with _Lorelai_. Maybe it was her fault. What if she'd married him? What if she'd stayed in Hartford with her parents? What if he'd gone to college like their parents wanted for him? What if, what if, what if… she could go on for hours about the "what ifs" that had plagued her for years. 

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So now in the middle of your lonely nights,   
Funny how it always gets to you. 

And it's just like the blues.   
To come calling,   
Lord it's just like they always do,   
All in the memories, you've been hiding,   
Funny how it always gets to you   
And it's just like the blues. 

Now you're thinking about him and the way things change 

She squeezed her eyes shut. Life wasn't fair, she'd been told a lot in the past. She'd said it a few times herself. She knew it wasn't fair. But it still hurt that Christopher would do this to them both. She knew Rory was disappointed, too. Just the look on her face when Lorelai had told her Sherry was pregnant. Rory had known immediately what that meant: another broken promise. Maybe eventually fulfilled, like that Oxford English Dictionary, but for the time being, a broken promise.

And she knew what Rory was thinking. "Well, that he wants this new baby more than he wanted me," she had said when Lorelai asked what she was feeling about it. "I mean, that's obvious. He wants this baby. He didn't want me. Don't look at me like that," she added. "I know he loves me. But he wasn't prepared for me."

"He wasn't prepared for this one, either," Lorelai pointed out.

"Maybe not, but at least he's a grownup this time. He can take care of a baby. That's some consolation. And that's another thing," she said, beginning to get angry. "How come he's sticking with Sherry? What if she doesn't want to marry him, like you didn't? What's he gonna do then?"

"Sherry isn't a sixteen-year-old girl," Lorelai said dully, hating to be forced to be the voice of reason. "She doesn't have her parents pressuring them both to get married. As far as I know." 

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It's all that you can do to keep from calling out his name.   
You pick up the phone to call but you change your mind:   
He wouldn't talk to you anyway—it's just a waste of time. 

She got out of bed, intending to look for food she knew wasn't there. It wasn't as if she'd be able to sleep until she left the ache behind. As she went down the stairs, she spotted the handset for the phone. It would serve him right, getting a call chewing him out at…what was it? Two in the morning. Shaking her head, she vetoed that idea. She didn't know who would answer, and she really didn't feel up to talking to Sherry.

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Love can be a cruel thing that makes a girl confused,   
You never know just what you should do,   
'Cause just when you think you're over him for good,   
It's funny how it always gets to you.

How many times is this going to happen? she asked herself as she looked in the nearly empty refrigerator for the third time. She slammed the door in frustration. How many times have I thought, "Oh, this is it!" only to be disappointed? How many times have I tried to be "over" Christopher? I'm usually "over" him just before he comes back into our lives and mucks them up. I swear, this is the last time.

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And it's just like the blues.   
To come calling,   
Lord it's just like they always do,   
All in the memories you've been hiding,   
Funny how it always gets to you   


And it's just like the blues.   
To come calling,   
Lord it's just like they always do,   
All in the memories you've been hiding,   
Funny how it always gets to you 

This is really, truly the last time, she told herself again, pulling a forgotten package of petrified marshmallows out of the cabinet and sitting at the table. She popped the first one in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Definitely. Absolute last time I'm letting him do this to us.

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And it's just like the blues.   
Just like the blues…

Until next time.

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End.

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Yeah, I know. Christopher is Rory's dad, so he's never going to be out of their lives. Thus, that ending.


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